The situation

With a wave of his hand, Lin Mo took out a plate of snacks and a small jar of wine, then invited Liu Xianzong to sit down and explain.

At the sight, the corner of Liu Xianzong's mouth twitched.

"You really do come prepared, kid."

Lin Mo had just acquired a Storage Bag. How could he not fill it with a few things?

And now they had come in handy right away.

"Erhu told me about this last night. Don't breathe a word to anyone else, or neither of us will be able to bear the consequences."

Liu Xianzong began with a warning.

"The Tai Sui Gate has resurfaced!"

He looked as though he were facing a formidable enemy.

Clearly, this so-called Tai Sui Gate was something extraordinary.

Seeing Lin Mo's blank expression, Liu Xianzong remembered that the lad had only recently become an Outer Sect Disciple and knew little about the distribution of power in the region. He simply began explaining as he ate the snacks.

The Azure Cloud Sect stood within the Vast Mountains and was one of the strongest sects within a thousand li. It shared a three-legged balance of power with the Sword Sect and Dragon Hall, with numerous weaker sects and factions scattered among them.

Most cultivators followed the bright, upright path, their bearing steeped in righteousness.

But the world had both righteousness and evil. Where there were righteous cultivators, there were naturally evil cultivators as well.

The cultivation methods evil cultivators practiced were sinister and bloody. Most raised their own cultivation at the cost of other people's lives and cultivation, allowing them to advance extremely quickly.

Such practices undoubtedly offended heaven and violated human decency. For the sake of justice, and to ensure an unbroken stream of new disciples, the righteous sects had joined forces under the leadership of the three great sects, forming the Righteous Alliance to eradicate the evil path.

The Tai Sui Gate had been the foremost power among those evil cultivators. In its heyday, it had even boasted two Golden Core True Lords, making it immensely powerful.

"Evil cultivators at the Golden Core stage!"

Lin Mo inwardly clicked his tongue in amazement.

As the saying went...

Once a golden core enters my belly, my fate belongs to me, not heaven.

Golden Core cultivators had already developed divine sense, allowing them to perceive the slightest movements within a hundred zhang. Their every gesture could draw forth great tides of spiritual energy from heaven and earth. Known as True Lords, they were the strongest figures within a thousand li.

The Azure Cloud Sect had been established for several hundred years, yet to this day, it had produced only one Golden Core True Lord.

Yet the Tai Sui Gate had possessed no fewer than two. That alone showed how formidable evil cultivators were.

"Evil cultivation methods allow rapid progress, but they come with countless drawbacks. Their practitioners often live only half as long as righteous cultivators. And because they commit so many atrocities, the great tribulation on the path to shattering their cores and forming nascent souls is extremely powerful. So whenever an evil cultivator reaches the nascent soul realm, it means a calamity across ten thousand li."

"Hmm... as your senior brother, I must warn you: don't let any crooked thoughts take root and lead you down that sinister path."

Noticing something amiss in Lin Mo's expression, Liu Xianzong immediately warned him.

Lin Mo came back to his senses and waved his hands repeatedly. "Rest assured, senior brother. My talent may be lacking, but I would never trade other people's lives for my own cultivation."

His moral bottom line was not particularly high, but he did still have one.

"The Tai Sui Gate can use all the flesh and blood of someone with a spiritual root as the catalyst to refine what they call a Tai Sui Pill. Swallow one, and you save yourself three years of arduous cultivation. The higher the catalyst's cultivation, the stronger the pill's effects."

"During the war between righteousness and evil, one of the Tai Sui Gate's Golden Core cultivators died in battle. Who could have imagined that the surviving one would take his golden core, refine it into a Tai Sui Pill, and swallow it? He nearly shattered his core and formed a nascent soul, almost breaking through the Righteous Alliance's encirclement. Fortunately, our Azure Cloud Sect's sect master also broke through in the midst of battle. Only then were we lucky enough to slay that fiend."

As Liu Xianzong spoke, his face shone with pride in the shared glory.

This was Lin Mo's first time hearing of these events, and he nodded repeatedly as he listened.

Even Qin Sang Sang slowed her movements and pricked up her ears.

It was not that she was deliberately eavesdropping on her two senior brothers. Rather, Liu Xianzong grew increasingly excited as he spoke, his voice rising as though he himself had been among those fighting in that battle.

Realizing he had lost his composure, Liu Xianzong chuckled twice and lowered his voice again.

"Erhu told me the Tai Sui Gate is like a hundred-legged insect that refuses to fall even after death. They weren't completely wiped out back then, and they've appeared again recently. He told me not to go out for the time being."

Back when Erhu had been a Servant Disciple, he had worked as Liu Xianzong's helper and received a great deal of care from him, so the two had always been on good terms.

"No wonder it's been so hard to find Servant Disciples lately. It looks like... this is probably why."

Connecting this with recent events, Lin Mo suddenly understood.

To refine Tai Sui Pills, the Tai Sui Gate's followers needed people with spiritual roots. Most sect disciples cultivated within their sects, while the scattered few who accepted missions and descended the mountain did not have particularly high cultivation.

Besides, too many dead disciples would easily draw the attention of the righteous sects. The losses would outweigh the gains.

So they had turned their attention to mortals who dreamed of cultivating.

"Still, even with the Tai Sui Gate stirring up trouble in secret, that shouldn't be enough to leave us with fewer than a hundred Servant Disciples coming up the mountain over these past two months. There may be other secrets involved that we know nothing about."

Liu Xianzong's voice grew quieter and quieter.

"Junior brother, don't go wandering about for the time being. Caution comes first."

Lin Mo certainly had no intention of descending the mountain, but he was a little worried about his family.

What if the Tai Sui Gate went mad with slaughter and swept those mortals up in it too?

Yet his cultivation was limited. At present, he had the will but lacked the strength, so he could only nod in agreement.

The sky gradually darkened.

The sect seemed to have grown quieter, as though wind and rain were gathering before a storm.

Many people had seen so many Inner Sect Disciples appearing at once during the day. News of the Tai Sui Gate's return simply could not be suppressed. Anyone with even a few connections had heard of it, making it an open secret.

The crowds in the Sect Affairs Hall and the Black Market grew rather than diminished. Many people spent large sums seeking a magic treasure to hold in reserve as their last resort, or formations, talismans, and the like.

Lin Mo returned to his own courtyard and walked straight over to the four spirit plants, studying one of the Fire Spirit Fruit plants in astonishment.

In just a single day, the original Fire Spirit Fruit plant had changed into something he barely recognized.

It was still a Fire Spirit Fruit plant, but it was taller and larger, waves of heat radiating from its entire body as though it were nurturing something.

The remaining three plants had ripened again within a single day.

What was more, their yield had quadrupled. Each Fire Spirit Fruit plant bore a dozen or so fruits.

"Good heavens, this is what the spirit liquid version of the spirit spring can do?!"

Lin Mo was utterly stunned.

He had initially felt a pang over using the spirit liquid version of the spirit spring to accelerate their growth, but he had never expected the resulting yield to be so astonishing.

This was four times the harvest. It directly recouped the cost of purchasing the spirit liquid, with plenty left over.

Delighted, Lin Mo reached out and picked the thirty-odd fruits one by one.

But the instant he plucked the last fruit from a plant, it abruptly withered, leaving no chance whatsoever of saving it. Lin Mo jumped in fright.

After crushing the three spirit plants and burying them in the soil, Lin Mo recalled how he had watered them with the spirit spring.

Each of the four spirit plants had received only a single drop of the upgraded spirit spring water. There had been no difference.

But when those three plants had their growth accelerated, they seemed to have exhausted their internal reserves, withering as soon as their fruits were picked.

The remaining plant must have undergone some kind of mutation, developing into something more powerful.

Could it be...

Could this spirit liquid version of the spirit spring also have a chance of helping living things break through their own shackles?!